Pretending
by scarletite
Summary: Semi-AU. Brittana. Sometimes you look at me and I'm not sure if you even see what you're doing to me. Or maybe you do. And I'm not sure what to think of you anymore, not now that the light has finally faded and I see what you look like in the shadow.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Glee, and any credit for character, places, or plot-related events goes to their respective owners.  
><strong>Pairing(s): <strong>Angsty!Brittana.  
><strong>Warnings: <strong>Slight mention of suicidal thoughts, angst, drama as usual.  
><strong>Summary: <strong>Semi-AU. Brittana. Sometimes you look at me and I'm not sure if you even see what you're doing to me. Or maybe you do. And I'm not sure what to think of you anymore, not now that the light has finally faded and I see what you look like in the shadow. I used to follow you out of love, now fear is all I have left.

This just came to me overnight, and like everything else I write, it has not been proofed or checked by anyone but me. I'm not sure exactly what the gist of the story is, or if it even makes sense. But, oddly, I am proud of it. But I'm beginning to think this angsty writing phase is taking over all my writing, no matter what, I cannot seem to write fluff lately.

Pretending

Sometimes you look at me and I'm not sure if you even see what you're doing to me. Or maybe you do. As much as I wish you did not do this to hurt me, I just can't reassure myself that you mean anything but. And I'm not sure what to think of you anymore, not now that the light has finally faded and I see what you look like in the shadow. Have you always been like this? Neglectful, hateful, damn near vindictive. I used to follow you around because I idolized you, because in my eyes you could do no wrong, and because I loved you with my entire heart, my entire being. Now I follow you out of fear, fear of being alone, of being unprotected, discarded and broken like trash. I follow you because I can't imagine a life without you anymore than you could build yours without me.

There has been a distance between us that has been growing for a long time now. I can't be sure exactly where it started, but I know exactly where it is going to end. Me and you, we've always been co-dependent, that much I know. And it is with that knowledge that I know, no matter how hard it gets, we will inevitably end up crawling into each other's bed at night; that's just the way things are, a reality, a fact that I've come to accept by now. No matter how much I've come to hate or despise you, I will never be able to leave you, nor you I, and we were never under any delusions that we could.

I've played the part of minion, of friend, of lover, of enemy. I have played many parts in this dance between you and I, and I've danced a thousand different dances, all that lead me back to you. But I'm hurt. I'm tired of this. I'm tired of you. I'm tired of being what you want of me and nothing more; and the tip of my tongue is bitter with blood because I've been biting my tongue for years. It kills me inside each time I will never be able to confess how much I have come to loathe you, and yet how I hate myself for being so utterly enamored by you regardless, captured in your cruel spell.

You look at me some days, all dark eyes full of humor and sarcasm. And I smile along with you, oblivious to the world, because I'm too busy trying to control the throb and ebb of my heart, to keep breathing. I've got the inhale covered, but the exhale takes work some days; sometimes I forget to exhale, and I'm left standing there, numb and dizzy and with the sound of my blood rushing to my ears. And all I can ever think is, _this is what you've made of me. _I used to be normal, happy, without a care in the world. Now I care so much that it steals me away and I forget myself, I forget you, I can barely remember my own name. And you just look at me with a twisted smile, one that lets me know that I've just missed another unspoken cue that I will pay for later.

When I was a child, I used to believe that love was something that was only for the old, that I would not, could not fall in love. I wouldn't be one of those fools, not like my helplessly in love parents. Now, I look back on that time, with bitter tears in my eyes and a painful yearning in my heart and know that I was wrong; I _can _fall in love, my only foolish move was falling in love with you. I've been smitten with you since day one, the day you linked my pinkie in yours in third grade and said we would be friends forever, before stealing a swing for the both of us from Rachel and Mercedes. I was foolish for believing that it could all be that black and white. Not with you, Santana, never with you.

You were right in one aspect, though. You and I will be together forever; we will both go down with this ship. For better or for worse, we are stuck with each other until the end. But that doesn't mean we will be friends. Most nights, I can barely look you in the eye without the mournful tears of what our relationship could have, _should _have been, but now will never be. And you always said you preferred it if there was no eye contact; now, you only use it to get to me—hold my head in place, bore your eyes into my own, and see the pain that vibrates through me as you break me apart one more time.

Once upon a time, you used to hold me when I was sad. You supported me through my nightmares. You whispered sweet words to me in Spanish, and even though I couldn't understand you, I loved them all the same. But now you are the nightmare. You stumble home to me, drunken and slurring, torn between angry and weeping. You aren't the girl you used to be, the one who I fell for so long ago. You're different now, hardened, made cruel by experience and circumstance, by hatred and insults.

With you, I'm never really sure where we stand. It's dangerous, it's rough, it's heartbreaking; it is everything we are, everything we've ever shared together, wrapped in a ball of age-worn bitterness. Some days, it feels like we're driving a million miles an hour, about to take a sharp turn, and the wheels are lifting off the road, and you know we're going to go, but you never quite know we. Some days, I feel like I'm standing with my eyes shut on a cliff's edge, dangling, and you've got your hands around my throat, holding me there. I never feel as alive as I do with you, because with you, I never know when I might just die; and that scares me.

You can't stand to hurt me, not physically, because you know losing me would kill you. I am the one person you have left that still gives a damn about you, who will wait up at night for you to come home, if only with anxiety. You hate me some days though, because I remind you so utterly of the things you don't want to remember about yourself, about your past. You hate me so much that you torture me, with weighted words and vile remarks, slurs and shouts, angry and bitter with rage. You only ever hit me once, and that was in a drunken haze of confusion and vodka—I remember the fear, the stinging, the tears and the ache of my heart. No, you don't need to hurt me physically to keep me in place, your words do that well enough on their own.

I remember a time when the words did not hurt me, not as they did now. Days when, between glee and cheerios and motocross, I had so much to fill in my days that I could wipe my mind of you and your callous remarks. But even someone like me can only bend so far before they break. And I broke a long time ago.

The frequent fights took their toll, wore me down like they were supposed to, until I was soft and pliable. Wore me down until I could not stand to fight back, oppressed me so much that I daren't step away from you because a life without you controlling me seemed so utterly suffocating, so scary that I still cannot face it now; and that is what binds me to you, still, my weakness and my fear.

I understood now, why my parents tried to keep you away from me at first, why my sister refused to allow you inside if my parents were away. They saw something in you, a darkness, a willingness to break something you loved so that you could keep a piece of it for yourself; and you always did break my toys in the most creative of ways, melting them, ripping them, feeding them to the dogs. It seemed so innocent to me then, normal even, acceptable. It took me twenty two years and multiple pains to finally step back, to see you for what you were, what you have become.

Tarnish and shattered, like the old mirror of my grandmother's that never saw the light of day. You hid away in your little world, denied yourself, denied the things you craved, denied your feelings. Denied me. And you still deny me now, rip me apart with your words and your razor smile and your casual touches. You humiliate me without thought, leave me in tears and sobbing and simply tell everyone that asks that the medication isn't working like it used to.

And you are partially right. The medication isn't working, I am far too aware now, where I was once hidden by a constant haze, a cloud that overcame me and let me accept what you were doing to me. Now that I'm saving them, a few bottles full, stacked and hidden away where you will never find them, in the box hidden in our closet that housed our memories. I am saving them for the day when it gets to be too much, the day when I finally snap and can take it no more. I can only hope, pray, that I will be strong enough to used them when that day comes.

And it is coming, I can feel it. With every moment that passes, every shout and every word that ticks that count a little higher, brings me a little closer to that stage of complete ruin. You brought this upon me, and I blame you for it, but I don't know who to blame for you—the expectations of family and friends, of society, that destroyed your innocence; the bullies and their slurs that made you ashamed of me, of yourself; the people who said they cared for you, then did not reach out a hand to help either of us; or the ones that turned tail when they saw exactly what sort of mess we made.

And we are a great mess, aren't we? We hurt and we fuck and we fight. You hide yourself from the world, from me, yell that you hate me and that you will go to hell for what I made you, that you were not born this way and that it was me that created this of you. And I don't correct you, I can't. I know that my pushing and my loving and everything that I did for you was too much, that I was equally as responsible for breaking you as everyone else was. I was selfish, I made you come out before you were ready, made you suffer and lose everything you had ever loved. But I know, if you are going to hell, I am going there with you for my hand in this.

I remember when it was love that bound us together, kept us returning to each other, to warm arms and gentle kisses. That was before your father threw you out, before you told my parents that you would never love me, before you started listening to the people that had once tormented you; it was before you buried who you were and became someone else, the monster from my nightmares. I remember when we used to whisper our hopes for the future, for a family, for kids and happiness and a world away from it all. But you let their bitterness get to you, infect you, turn you numb.

Now we don't love each other like we used to, not we want to, not really. But these nights when you press me so close to you that each of your breaths rumbles through me, it seems like we share one body, one soul, one fated eternity. Nights like these are the nights where we can curl up to each other and pretend. Pretend we're not broken, pretend we still care, pretend things never changed. Pretend you will not wake up, wake me with your shouts and your ridicule, that you won't rip me apart for the millionth time over.

And even if it's just for just a few hours, we can close our eyes and pretend that somewhere inside us hope still lingers.

Pretend that life is how we always dreamed it would be, and that we still have something left.


End file.
